Rice for Breakfast

As the family slowly continues the move toward cleaner eating, I have to take a look at breakfast. It starts our day & gets us going. But grabbing a Pop Tart is probably not the best option.

For Christmas, my hubby & I got a rice/veggie steamer. We were STOKED to get it! We haven't used it a whole lot, but we do use it & find new ways to make rice all of the time. The kids really enjoy some plain, steamed, white rice. So do I! But finding out that the white rice is fairly "empty", I wanted to boost it up to brown rice. Yes, it takes longer & takes more prep in planning, but we do what we can.

Now, when we received our steamer from the in-laws, my MIL questioned why we wanted one so badly. I told her we like rice. I thought it was a no-brainer. But then she wanted to know why we have so much rice for breakfast. Yeah...she asked me about that. I was confuzzled!! I informed her we have it or dinners mostly, and she graciously accepted my answer. But her inquiry got me thinking...

Several years ago, my hubby was on a week-long mission trip in Nicaragua. He said that they were served rice pretty much every morning for breakfast. They just added some milk & sugar...so treated it like we look at cereal. He has brought up wanted to do that at home, but we didn't have the thought process or prep in planning to do so.

In the quest of cleaner eating, I decided to swap out some oatmeal (even though good for you...still very heavy for summertime) with rice! And I found a wild rice blend at the grocery store, so I mixed it with some brown rice.

Here's what I did:

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RICE FOR BREAKFAST

Ingredients:

~ 1 C steamed brown &/or wild long grain rice
~ 1/4 C dried or fresh fruit
~ 1/4 C nuts
~ 1 T honey or agave
~ 1/2 T cinnamon

Directions:

* I used equal parts of wild rice blend & brown long grain rice & steamed it according to my steamer's brown rice directions; about enough to last 4 days (about 4 cups worth)

* When finished (about 45 minutes later), I scooped about 1 cup of steamed rice into a small bowl, then added the fruit (I used a dried berry mix) & the nuts (I used sliced almonds); you may mix it all together at this point

* Drizzle the cereal, fruit & nut mixture with the honey or agave (I used honey), and then sprinkle with cinnamon; you may mix it all together at this point

* Consume

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I love this for breakfast!! And it's very vegan friendly, too! It's easy...plus you can refrigerate the left over rice & have it for a few days afterward, too.

If you want to change it up a bit, change up the fruit and nuts. You can also add raw sugar or a sugar-free maple syrup & a bit of milk for cereal option less heavy than oatmeal. I've even mashed up a banana in with it. YUM!!

So...happy eating!

ENJOY!